It's a Long, Lonely Search for Men Looking for Love in Alaska

NOME, Alaska, July 15 - It was late on a summer evening at a saloon on Front Street in this dusty mining and fishing town on the Bering Sea, and the men were excited.

The bar, Breakers, was packed. And standing on the beer-stained floor was a most unusual sight for Nome's many bachelors: women.

There they were, an oasis in the Arctic, shooting pool, giving out phone numbers, dashing off to the restroom to apply lipstick, coquettishly sipping drinks bought by their suitors, including a popular cocktail, "Love Me Tender," made with gin and peach vodka.

"Aren't they so fantastic?" one single man said to another. "I wish they wouldn't leave us."
Summer is a time of hope for the unattached men of Nome, a tough gold rush town of 3,500 people in Alaska's far western corner, where single men outnumber single women by almost two to one. Each June, with the midnight sun come the summer interns - this year, seven fresh-faced women in their 20's from across the lower 48 states. They work on a nutrition project with Nome's Alaska Natives and then spend many of their nights barhopping.